The Mound of the Hostages on the Hill of Tara is the oldest surviving monument above ground at this place where over 100 of the High Kings of Ireland were crowned. The hill and valley had been the centre of political, social and religious life in Ireland, perhaps for over 5,000 years.

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It is a neolithic Passage Tomb with an undifferentiated passage and chamber (no recesses), there is also some neolithic carving to be seen on one of the stones in the passage. The name 'The Mound of the Hostages' is only a thousand years old at most whereas the mound itself is over 5,000 years old.

Lit by the light of the full moon, 7/9/06. The constellation Ursa Minor can be seen above in the night sky. (Click on the photo for a larger version, the click back to return).

This is a view of the earthworks known as 'The Kings Seat' or 'An Forradh' in gaelic. This mound surrounded by concentric banks is where the Lia Fail or 'Stone of Destiny' stands, beside a memorial tombstone for those who died in the failed 1798 rebellion.

A similar view in daylight.

The short passage and chamber is quite small and in proportion with the rest of the mound, it has a small stone 'basin' at the rear and when excavated it was found to hold the remains of hundreds of people in the chamber, passage and also in the earthen mound. It was excavated over two summers in 1955 and '56.

During his research into neolithic art, passage tombs and astronomy, Martin Brennan noted that its passage was orientated so that the cross quater days sunrise (half way between the solstice and the equinoxes) shines onto the rear stone at the back of the chamber. Due to bad weather conditions on the cross quater days in 2005 and 2006 it was not possible to witness this but some two weeks later I was able to observe the impressive alignment still functioning. A clear sunrise on the 15th Febrary 2006 gave an impressive display when just before 8am the backstone of the passage was brightly lit by sunlight as you can see in the photos below. This general view of the mound was also taken at this time.

From outside the mound, a few metres from the entrance you can already see the backstone is brightly illuminated.

The shortness of the passage means that the alignment is not as accurate as the other better known alignments at Newgrange and Loughcrew so it is possible to see this event for some time either side of the cross quater days.

The bars of the gate partially block the suns light on the backstone, this photo was taken at about 4 minutes past 8am.

Continue on to page two to see a sequence of photos of this event.

The illumination moved very slowly across the back stone towards the right side of the chamber walls and in all the illumination lasted almost an hour.